Drum uses a templating system for opportunities, projects, deliverables and proposals. You can create and combine these templates for different project types.

At a high level: project and opportunity templates are built from deliverable templates; proposal templates combine an internal budget (often from a project template) with customer-facing line items.

Creating and editing Deliverable, Opportunity, Project and Proposal templates needs the Customisation permission. Account admins always have Customisation. See Drum Permissions.

A deliverable groups tasks around a key outcome. Deliverable templates are building blocks for opportunity and project templates. Create them under Settings → Deliverable Templates. Each task is a Task, Event, or Process Only type.

Each deliverable template has a Default Budget Type: Fixed Fee or Time And Materials. When a project or opportunity template includes that deliverable, new budgets created from the template use this as the deliverable’s billing method. Set it on the deliverable template form before you save. Resource rows and fixed pricing on the template only affect new budgets created from it; they do not rewrite live projects.

Opportunity and project templates combine a name, Active/Draft status, an ordered list of deliverable templates, optional custom fields, and an optional Default Rate Card. Leave Default Rate Card blank to use the account default. New opportunities or projects from that template start on that rate card.

A phase on a deliverable row is only a label. Changing phase does not reorder the list. Save with status Active so the template appears when creating new records.

Workflow statuses for delivery projects and opportunities are not set on each structure template. Manage them on Project Settings or Opportunity Settings instead. See How to add a project status.

If you want every new project from a template to include a separate deliverable for on-charged costs (often named Disbursements or Reimbursements):

New projects created from those templates then start with that Time And Materials deliverable. Changing the template does not add it to projects that already exist. For jobs already underway, add the deliverable on the live project budget instead: How to show costs or reimbursements as a separate line on a progress claim.

Proposal templates hold a backing project budget and customer-facing line items. Create them under Settings → Proposal Templates. Adjust the Project Budget tab first, then Sync Budget or edit line items on the Proposal tab.

Changing a template does not rewrite projects, opportunities or proposals that were already created from it. Those keep the rates and structure they had when they were created.

The same applies to deliverable structure: adding a deliverable to a project template does not add it to existing projects. Use the live project budget for jobs already underway.

The forward fix for rate tiers is the Default Rate Card on the opportunity template. When that is set correctly, new opportunities start on the right card, and when you convert an accepted proposal (or otherwise turn the opportunity into a project), the project inherits that same rate card.

Changing Rate Card on a live project updates the default rates used for new time tracked after the change. Past tracked time keeps the billable rate stored when that time was logged. There is no self-serve control that bulk re-rates all historical tracked time in one step.

By creating templates that match your processes and client deliverables, you create a structure you can leverage over and over again.